Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Happy International Women's Day

I hope you do something relevant to celebrate IWD and mourn the continuing need for it. In my mind today are the women of Saudi Arabia - basically highly-educated prisoners - and my students. Being a humanities lecturer, most of my English literature classes are overwhelmingly female, though my media/cultural studies classes are more balanced.

Despite the demographics of English courses, relatively few women become lecturers - though the proportion is higher in The Hegemon, I think. Is this to do with the economics and working lives of men and women? Or is it connected to the performative aspects of lecturing and researching? Are women conditioned against this kind of intellectual leadership? Certainly 100 years ago the theory was that women were creatures of biology while men were the intellectuals and strivers - an idea achieved by strenuously ignoring the work of a huge range of female authors, composers and scientists.

So here's my hero of the day: Ada Lovelace (1815-1852): the daughter of Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke. Ada was the world's first computer programmer, writing the software for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Unfortunately, the machine was never built.

Happily though, Ada and Charles became geek crimefighting steampunk heroes. At least, in this version…

Nice tribute, Vole. It seems that here in the US, at least in the subject of English, there are more female than male professors/instructors -- but that also depends on the institution. I'd guess that the Ivies and other private schools have a higher percentage of males than public institutions (lower tuition = lower pay).

I like the new header pic, too - such a brave (and possibly foolish) vole!